Tips for shooting the Northern Lights?

stumpybrown

stumpybrown

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Hi all,

The Missus and I are off to Iceland in Feb (yes I know it's a while away) and we are heading out one night with a tour to see the Northern Lights. Now I have a 40D and a decent Manfrotto tripod, cable release etc.

But I'm wondering a couple of things, firstly which lens would be best suited for this task?
I currently have the Siggy 10-20, Tamron 17-50, and Canon 70-200 f4L.

I'm guessing the Siggy will probably be the order of the day (or night), but have any of you guys or girls done this and have any tips for me?

Would a wider lens or fast prime be worthwhile renting?

Any help appreciated :)
 
I'd have thought you wanted fairly long exposures (not sure though), so I don't think a fast lens would help you very much, because you won't need to be wide open if you're shooting for 60 seconds at a time
 
It's a bit of a tough call with the lens; whether to go for a maximum aperture of f2.8 with the Tamron, or the wider angle with the Sigma. I took some shots of the Northern Lights recently with a Canon 10-22. It was a new moon (i.e. maximum darkness) and the lights were not dazzlingly bright in the countryside and I was shooting at 60 seconds+ at ISO1600 f3.5. It's just a case of playing around.

One thing I did learn though is not to use the automatic high ISO noise reduction on the camera, as a 60 secocond exposure needs 60 seconds on top to write to the card before you can take another shot, and the lights can change rapidly.

A good tip I was given is that even if you can't see much in the sky, open your camera up anyway and that will show more than you can see with the naked eye.

I would also recommend going out on an organised trip to a) get you away from the city lights and b) be with someone who can point you in the right direction for seeing the lights, daft though that may seem.
 
Good luck in finding them. It's an impressive sight when you find them, but it may take a few attempts.
 
Took this in Iceland in 2008, the settings are in the frame :) i found this worked really well, and changed the length of exposures but found too long an exposure messed up the foreground and you ended up with no Blacks ! The Orange parts are street light refelctions in Clouds reflected from Reykjavik !

Aurora_Borealis4a.jpg
 
i know they say do it wide open, but surely you want the same kinda DOF as you'd do on a landscape shot, f/11 +

also on the links saying use high ISO, personally would use 100/200 as you've got the light on your side (with relation to longer exposure)

all in all, they're trying to get the shutter speed down but sacrificing DOF for it when you're in fact shooting a landscape? hmmmmmmmmmm

__

we're thinking of doing iceland early next year, what part you heading to stumpy?
 
I'm also going in February too at half term, i've booked marked this thread :p

I'll be taking a couple of lenses an 18-70 and an 85f2 unless i manage to buy something faster by then...might bump into you. :)
 
We're going in the middle of Feb to Reykjavik for a long weekend. Icelandair are doing pretty good deals at the moment. Looking forward to the lights but not the cold :)

Looking at the blogs around the net and the advice here, I might have a think about hiring the 15mm or 14mm f 2.8 fisheye, (or maybe even the sigma 4.5mm f 2.8) as I'm not a massive fan of high iso speeds, but love the wide angles :)
 
Shot in manual wide open at 640 ISO for twenty seconds. I took various between 20 and 30 seconds

4378870146_51de0da680.jpg
 
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